How Pacing Helps Readers Care about Our Characters
I never watched Game of Thrones but this past season is an excellent example of how pacing can affect character arcs and readers’ relationships to our characters.
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Choosing Just the Right Words — Guest: Kathy Steinemann
Choosing the right word requires us to know grammar, consider voice, avoid typos, and possess a large vocabulary. Homophones add a layer of difficulty.
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Story Revisions: Keeping Track of Changes
Anytime we make a lot of changes to our story, we risk problems, but it helps to track the edits we need to make. How can we organize our revision?
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Making a Big Revision? Stitching Our Story’s Rips Together
It’s time for another post as a Resident Writing Coach over at Writers Helping Writers, and this time we’re talking about how to stitch together the pieces of our story after a big revision.
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Our Story’s Essence: What’s the Story We Want to Tell?
Last week, we talked about discovering the essence of our character, but what about the essence of our story. What makes a story idea the one we want to tell? And why does understanding our story’s essence matter?
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Need Help Writing Emotions? The Emotion Thesaurus Second Edition Is Here!
I’ve been helping Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi at Writers Helping Writers keep a big secret: The Emotion Thesaurus Second Edition! Angela and Becca have added new responses, new entries, and new writing tips.
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5 Ways to Create Movie Magic in Your Writing — Guest: J. E. Martin
Ever notice how some stories transport you more immersively into the story world? Author coach J. E. Martin is sharing her 5-step plan to help our writing create a cinematic experience for our readers.
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How Do We Check the Facts in Our Fiction? — Guest: Selina J. Eckert
Fiction has to make more sense than real life, and logic and consistency are required. Selina J. Eckert shares her advice on how to make sure our fiction rings true through fact-checking.
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Using Tips from Poetry to Strengthen Our Prose — Guest: Pamela Donison
Longer writing—such as stories—can often be easier to write than something shorter, like a synopsis, query, Twitter pitch, or log line. That’s why the skills important in poetry can strengthen our prose writing.
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How to Save a Broken Story
A truly broken story is one where the pieces of the story don’t come together in a coherent whole. But if we’re willing to put in the work, virtually any story can be saved. Then question then is: What steps should we take to fix a broken story?
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